Deadly Revenge (Pearl River #3)

Chapter 74

74

Once Max left, Jenna alerted Alex to what was going on, then she turned to Junior. “You know Donelson—what’s he thinking right now? Will he kill Carter?”

“That’s a hard one.” The big man looked at her and shook his head. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d kill Joe and Katherine, or Paul. He must’ve lost it.”

Jenna’s cell phone pinged with a text. “Alex found his truck parked behind the bank. So he has to be here somewhere. And she can’t get Carter to forgo his speech—he doesn’t believe he’s in danger.”

Junior snorted. “Sounds about like the Harrison Carter I know.”

“If Donelson set a bomb, how would he set it off?”

Junior scratched his head. “Funny you ask that. He used dynamite on one of the beaver dams, but the other one, he used C-4 and a cell phone.”

So Max probably wasn’t dealing with a timer ... maybe a cell phone to set it off. She scanned the park. Donelson had to be hiding in plain sight. But where? He was a hunter ... and she wasn’t. Jenna liked to hear the dogs run, but that was the extent of her hunting desire. She turned to Junior. “If you were going to shoot Carter, where would you do it from?”

“Somewhere high—that way I’d have a clear line of sight. Maybe a tree or—”

“The treehouse!”

They both spoke at the same time.

Jenna turned and studied the structure. It had a direct line of fire to the stage. What if Donelson had hung the signs?

She started to the treehouse and stopped. If she climbed the steps, he would hear her. Jenna turned to Junior. “I need you to create a diversion to draw Donelson’s attention if he’s in the treehouse. Can you do that?”

He thought a second, then his lips turned up in a lopsided grin. “You betcha.”

While Junior ambled toward the stage, Jenna called Alex and filled her in as she worked her way around to the steps. The small opening where the slide accessed the treehouse had a flap with “Keep Out” on it. The back opening at the top of the steps had the same type of flap.

She glanced toward the stage again. Junior was talking to Wayne, then he hopped up on the stage and grabbed the microphone and a loud screech sounded.

“Is this thing on?” His voice boomed through the speakers. “Yeah, I think it is. Well, I’m gonna sing you a song while we wait for our illustrious former mayor to get through kissing babies.”

While everyone’s attention was on Wayne and a couple of Carter’s bodyguards as they scrambled to stop Junior, Jenna silently climbed the steps.

She reached the top and inched the flap aside. Donelson knelt by the window with his back half turned from her.

A cell phone was in his left hand, and he was punching a button.